David Juritz in Portsmouth, UK

Children from Hout Bay Music Project

Capetown, South Africa

BROOKLYN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OPENING CONCERT FEATURES A GUEST APPEARANCE BY INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED VIOLINIST, DAVID JURITZ

The opening concert of the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra's 35th season was held on Sunday, October 21st at 3:00 p.m. at the Church of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity in Brooklyn Heights. The orchestra performed a program of gypsy music, which included George Enescu's Roumanian Rhapsody #1 in A and Johannes Brahms' Piano Quartet #1 in G minor, Op. 25, arranged for orchestra by Arnold Schoenberg in 1937.

The concert featured a guest performance by critically acclaimed London-based violinist David Juritz. This performance with the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra was one of the last stops on Jurtiz's worldwide "busking" tour raising money for Musequality, a charity which supports music education for the poorest children in the developing world. "Busking" is performing in public in the hopes of soliciting donations, and while it's often seen on street corners around the world, it's never been done on this large a scale by such a prominent performer. He is playing solo Bach sonatas and partitas on the streets and has called his tour "Round the World and Bach".

"Some days are great but for every great day you have to expect at least one or two bad ones. In Berlin, European capital of music, I ended up at the end of the day with just €11 and blisters on the soles of my feet. The other day, in Santa Monica, I played for three hours and earned all of $10." There are the good moments too, "Every now and again someone stops and quietly slips a large denomination note into the case which is great, but the donation which meant the most to me was from a labourer in Singapore. He gave me $5 'so that a child can have a proper education'. He was giving what was a lot of money for him so that a child he would never meet would have a better chance in life than he had. I feel I've got a huge responsibility to that man."

He arrived in New York on Wednesday, October 17th and leaves on Tuesday, October 23rd for home. Since his arrival, he has been busking at various landmarks around the city, including the Times Square, the Empire State Building, on the Staten Island ferry with the statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline in view, Fifth Avenue, Central Park and as many other well-known locations as he can fit in.

He has already busked in the major cities of Europe, as well as Uganda, South Africa, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Korea, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela and Canada. It's been a whistlestop tour.

Juritz's worldwide busking tour has been featured in The New York Times (Violinist Hits the Streets on a Mission of Music, October 19, 2007) and in The Daily News (Violinist Hits Streets for Charity Drive, October 18, 2007).

In 1991, David Juritz was appointed concertmaster of the UK's longest established chamber orchestra, the London Mozart Players (LMP). He works frequently as soloist and director with the LMP and has given many world premieres, including new works by Cecilia McDowall, Geoffrey Burgon, Lynne Plowman and Geoffrey Hanson. He also works as a guest-director with orchestras such as the Ambache Chamber Orchestra, Mozart Festival Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Zurich Chamber Orchestra. He is a regular guest leader with orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic and London Philharmonic Orchestras and also has led session orchestras on major films. Recent credits include The Last King of Scotland and The Merchant of Venice. In addition to performing, Juritz writes about issues related to music. He has contributed articles to The Strad, Double Bassist, and Nature and recently presented "The Asylum Band," a program about the orchestra of Norfolk Mental Hospital, on BBC 4. In 2005 he took over the role of Artistic Director of the Burton Bradstock Festival.

The Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra, comprised of talented amateur, semi-professional and professional musicians, is one of the New York area's finest community orchestras. Founded 34 years ago as the "Brooklyn Heights Orchestra," the group joins under the baton of Artistic Director Nicholas Armstrong to present five symphonic concerts per season of classical, romantic and 20th-century music. This concert was made possible, in part, with public funds.